[NOTE: The original video on Davis Aurini’s YouTube channel was taken down shortly after the post went up. So I’ve embedded the version that is, as of this moment, up on the director’s YouTube channel. I”d recommend that you download this for your permanent collection.]
Ok, so I’ve been working on a post about the latest ridiculous doings of our friends Davis Aurini and JordanOwen42 — the not-so-dynamic duo who’ve been desperately begging for money to make their Totally Serious documentary about how evil Anita Sarkeesian is. But then I watched this, and it’s too good not to post on its own.
This is Lust in the Time of Heartache, a short “philosophical” film written and produced, and just posted on teh Interwebs, by Mr. Aurini. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be a comedy, but I was laughing at it from beginning to end.
There’s nothing about this film that’s not terrible and ridiculous, from the choice of fonts in the title sequence to the names of the characters as revealed in the closing credits.
Where even to start in criticizing this mess? The, er, “acting?” The pretentious, pseudo-philosophical voiceover, delivered by Mr. Aurini himself? The shrill, frantic — yet somehow also meandering — music that plays almost continuously from beginning to end? The ludicrously unconvincing fight choreography? The ill-fitting suits? The evo psych? The dawning recognition that this whole thing is meant to depict how Aurini sees himself in our “fallen” world?
The fact that this ten minute film credits a “parkour consultant?”
I’m going to borrow a couple of lines from Pauline Kael’s famous review of the legendarily stinky 1970 film Song of Norway because they offer a pretty fair assessment of this one as well:
The movie is of an unbelievable badness. … You can’t get angry at something this stupefying; it seems to have been made by trolls.
She means “under the bridge”-style trolls, not the modern kind.
Oh, and the sound is awful, too. NOTE: Dialogue is supposed to be louder than the background noises.
Anyway, just watch it. It’s only ten minutes long. And definitely stay for the final credits. You’ll see why.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. Read this glowing review, from some dude on YouTube:
Excellent writing that encompasses the transitions from one cinematic style to the next. At first I was concentrating on the technical problems and lackluster performances, however, after about 5 mins in, the pacing kicked up a notch. Well done, sir.
My favorit part is how he just holds his sai out so the other guys can whack them a bunch. Because choreography is HARD.
No, I really can’t believe an adult produced this. If this is any indication as to what that Social Justice Warrior movie is going to look like, I sure as hell hope it actually gets made.
Zolnier, it’s supposed to be a short “philosophical” film. I guess how men or more specifically Davis Aurini sees himself in a fallen world. Well that’s at least how David puts it.
Never mind the weird style – look at the content – all the man/woman interactions are really disturbing to m, either using sexist stereotypes or projections of what they think women are doing.
Adam, I still don’t understand the point of this documentary. Or why they are attacking social justice warriors. But yeah, this video was obviously poorly made.
SharonC, yeah I mentioned that in a previous comment. About how the women are shown in a very bad light. Like the woman threatening her husband with divorce, or the woman that called the homeless man scum, asked why he didn’t have a job then kicked him after he called her a cow, and the three women that just met this one man and they all decided to go have drinks with him in the middle of the day.
@SharonC
[blockquote]Never mind the weird style – look at the content – all the man/woman interactions are really disturbing to m, either using sexist stereotypes or projections of what they think women are doing.[/blockquote]
“Your name is bubba now!”
::snicker:: Yes, he would!
The sort that should be a six-foot-deep hole to bury it in?
C.B., they’re misogynist jerkwads with an overdose of pretentiousness. There isn’t much more to it than that.
However! Since fedoras got into the conversation, I’ve had fun making a new pic of Louis. Bonus points for anyone who recognises the origin picture of his coat.
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee87/LouisLouise/FedoraLeatherlookingdownsmall_zps3ecc6e39.png
Kittehserf, yeah but sometimes I wonder how they got to this point.
Oh, I get you. I’ve long got to the “don’t care why” stage with pigeon droppings like these.
Kittehserf, is that Arnie’s from Terminator? 😉
Wtf is this nonsense. I have no idea what he was talking about.
I feel like I’m almost at the phase too. Anyways I appreciate the conversation and your understanding. Believe or not you really helped me by making me feel more comfortable. I have really bad social anxiety even on the internet. But it’s very late and I’m getting tired so I’ll see you guys later on today. Nice speaking with you!
I watched a couple of minutes, tops. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Every scene, the “acting”, the dialogues, even the facial gestures, it’s all so… cheap.
The music volume overlaps the voice of the (awful and dull) narrator most of the time.
Bad editing, bad content, and a lot of passive-agressive anger in every word.
I don’t know why these people did that to themselves…
Oh, sorry, forgot to say this… but the title intro totally looked like it was the beginning of a random XXX film.
I’m trying to recall any video cheaper than this, but I can’t.
How do I embed videos? I want to post that scene from ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ where Steve Martin’s character says: “When you’re telling these stories, here’s an idea: have a point.”
Thebarton Gamer – nope! Arnie’s a bit on the, ahem, burly side to use for pics of Louis. 🙂
Hint: much more recent, and television.
C.B. – glad we’re helping! I socialise more easily on the ‘net than afk, too, so I sympathise.
aebars – if it’s a youtube video, just copy the link in the Share thingy, and paste it here. That normally embeds it.
What the hell did I just watch?
First of all there are a few scenes where women act the way women only act in the minds of manosphere dwellers. A woman wants a divorce because her poor husband can’t get a job (and not because he drinks and cheats on her). Another one kicks – KICKS! – a homeless man. Oddly, I have never seen a woman beat up a homeless man with her purse. And a few other women do other bad bad things. And then, for no discernible reason, all the men break into weirdly choreographed fighting. I expected them to start singing “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.”
The “director”, Leon Glower, seems to be a relatively nice guy who spends a lot of his time doing tricks for his Bengal cat, if his youtube channel can be believed. I blame Davis Aurini entirely!
Oh, good, I wasn’t the only one thinking West Side Story.
I can never think of West Side Story without it turning into that Hamish MacBeth episode, West Coast Story.
@cassandra (and I searched for this because I figured someone else would have said it first):
Maybe they’re getting cunning and they’re going to bore us to death?
It almost worked! Luckily most of us seem to have closed out just in time.
If I’m going to be bored to death by someone’s cunning plan, I’d rather listen to Baldrick reciting poetry.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
This is truly exemplary of the lack of self-awareness that MRA’s have. You have this, you have the shitty graphics they create for “memes”, you have their laughable metal music intros to their youtube videos and podcasts, you have their puerile preoccupation with looking like cartoon villains, and of course their obsession with skulls and in general imagery that looks like it was inspired by a 90’s Korn poster.
They are cultural and artistic juveniles. Unless, of course, Aurini was aiming for high camp when he made this thing. And to be honest, it is so terrible, that it did occur to me that maybe it’s deliberately awful. But it that was the intention, then there would be some knowing wink to the audience, some moment, that tipped us off that it was all intentional. And there is nothing to indicate that Aurini was knowingly trying to make a unbearable short film.
David: I can’t take credit for “Anton LaPUA,” someone on another thread coined it, but it’s too good not to use.
Haha, I love that Baldrick poem. He really gets to the heart of the matter.
People talking about how the film noir theme doesn’t really work in a sunny pleasant town clearly weren’t paying attention. Its because men have become soft…possibly…and about how um, its bad that we have society because men have the blood of heroes running through their veins…
Cough.
I did some film making/studying when I was about 17 and from a class of about 25 guys I never once saw anything as truly awful as this. Its like another level of crap. New words need to be invented to describe it, like supermegaamateur.
Does the beginning title remind anyone else of coronation street?